Catalog 5 online

Every year a group of my friends have an engineering Secret Santa. The rules are simple: make something cool for under $20 that requires engineering to complete. In years past we’ve seen Google cardboard VR headsets that are 6DOF, match stick rockets, 3D printed fans that explode when used, 3D printed rockets with cardboard launch […]

New product for your attention: Electret Microphone Breakout $7.95 Audio sensors & mics have to be amplified just right for best response. Here's a tidy unit engineered by Sparkfun to make adding an electret mic to your project easy. MEMS microphone board $9.95 Newer MEMS microphones give much better response than older style electret mics, […]

3D printer Using Smartphone Light The creators claim this is the first of its kind, high-resolution portable 3D printer. Interesting idea. (Via Designboom) Tiny Picobug It is adorable and multi-modal - it is capable of flying, crawling and grabbing. (Via IEEE Spectrum) Illuminated Bluetooth Speaker A combination of white oak and LED-illuminated acrylic makes this […]

We use many, many devices with 0.1" spaced holes, which are pretty much an electronics design standard. We're finding these 0.1" space terminal blocks incredibly useful for making solid, secure, yet serviceable connections to the rest of our designs. We'll often reach for a microcontroller board, then reach for a necessary handful of these parts […]